The last words my Grandpa spoke to me

When I was growing up, my Grandma and Grandpa from my Dad’s side lived in Tennessee. They were warm and sweet. They had those Southern accents that sound like love and make you feel right at home. I flew from California to visit their small town with its small church and nothing much else a few summers. My Grandma would take me to VBS, and give me lots of hugs. I think I felt like everything could be okay in the world during those times. In the center of one of my Grandma’s hugs might be the safest and most loved I ever felt growing up. When I was staying with them, I was just a kid.

My Grandpa I remember with a big, handsome smile on his face. He laughed often when I was around and didn’t take himself too seriously. I felt loved by him even though I didn’t see him often. As I grew up, I became more distant from them. They lived far away and I didn’t reach out or try to close the gap. I was consumed by the life and things and people in front of me, and didn’t think to love my grandparents.

Shortly after college, I heard that my Grandma had died. I cried and remembered her warm hugs.

Then, in 2021, after much suffering and loss of the life and things and people in front of me, I remembered my Grandpa. I felt this strong sense that I should reach out to him. I remembered his kindness towards me and wanted to reconnect. But it had been a very long time, and I didn’t know where he lived anymore or how to contact him. So, I reached out to my Aunt to find out. She told me that he was in the hospital and gave me his cell phone number.

When I called and heard his voice for the first time in over a decade, all the warmth and love of those summer days in Tennessee came rushing back. His voice was the same as I remembered, only feebler. Older. He didn’t know who I was at first. When he realized, I could hear the joy and surprise in his voice. He asked me about my life and how I was. He told me he was in the hospital for a heart issue and that things weren’t looking great. He said he might be able to go home soon. I realized that the home he was referring to wasn’t the place I remembered and that my Grandma wouldn’t be there. Our brief call was full of joy and grief.

We spoke a few more times over the following weeks. He would forget what we’d talked about, maybe that we’d spoken at all. His health was deteriorating. During our last conversation, he said something to me that I’ve held on to ever since. His heart was failing. He knew the end was near. He said:

“Don’t wait like me.”

"Make sure you go to the doctor. Don’t wait like me, until it’s too late.”

I told him I wouldn’t, we said our goodbyes, and ended our call.

My Grandpa left this earth days later.

The last words he spoke to me had been a warning, like a plea.

A plea because he loved me.

I believe he was talking about my physical health, his physical heart. He wanted me to be preventative. To not neglect annual physicals and the like. But looking back, knowing what I know now and who I know now, I can’t help but wonder. Through the same man whose wife had taken me to VBS, who had delighted in me and I in him all those years ago, came the message not to wait. “Go to the doctor.”

His comments put a healthy fear in me. I’d promised I wouldn’t wait and I meant it. I didn’t want to die of an unknown, undealt-with disease.

Not long after my Grandpa passed, I was making poor choices that went against my conscience and filled my heart with self-loathing.

Full of fear, regret, and self-condemnation, I kept ignoring and trying to quiet my conscience. I knew that certain things I was doing were wrong, but I hardened my heart. I was too afraid to do anything else.

One day, I had a sobering moment. I made a comment to a friend about one of my poor choices, something that greatly affected another human being. I was disturbed by my own callousness. Who have I become? My conscience was, once again, pricked. Something is wrong.

The symptoms of a ‘sickness’ were becoming more obvious. My need for a doctor, for someone to diagnose me and heal whatever was clearly wrong with me, was becoming more obvious. Over the years, I’d sought help in 12-step recovery. In therapy. In New Age teachers and gurus. In self-help and spiritual disciplines. But here I was - my heart more cold and calloused than ever. I was more deeply ashamed and afraid than ever.

You might say my ‘heart’ was being examined and revealed to me by the Holy Spirit. The divine Doctor, in His mercy, comes to us before we ever come to Him.

Indeed, that same month, I had an unexpected encounter with Jesus. Despite all outside appearances, I felt ugly, ashamed, afraid, and alone. Crying alone on the floor in my bedroom is where He met me and showed me grace. I was captivated by His kindness. Perhaps He might be able to heal me. I opened up a Precious Moments Bible that’d been given to me by my Nana (a different Grandma) when I was born. I decided to attend church, one that a friend had brought me to a few years before. And as I sought Jesus, He showed me the truth.

He showed me that all of us are born with the same, inherited ‘heart’ condition. When my Grandpa implored me to be preventative and get examined, my ‘heart’ was already very sick. In fact, I’d been born with the same soul-deep sickness as him. Sin. I didn’t trust God to love me, help me, heal me, guide me - to be God.

I learned that we’re all born with this ‘heart’ defect since Adam, and that we make ourselves more sick when we walk in that distrust. I learned that I’d been making myself sicker and sicker for a long time - every time I went my own way instead of God’s way. My condition was progressive and terminal if left untreated. Sin had made my heart hardened and calloused, like stone.

I also learned that there was a cure, and one (only one) Doctor who could put a stop to and heal the damaged caused by my sin. He’d been the last one I’d wanted or been willing to turn to. Jesus. I’d turned to everything for a ‘cure’ except Him. But out of His great love for me, He had continued to reach out and extend His help and hand to me.

He offered me a cure that was almost as disturbing to me as my sickness. It brings me to my knees even now. He offered me His own healthy, beautiful, sinless heart in exchange for my sick, disfigured, sinful heart. He offered me His eternal life, in exchange for my condemned life. His reward, for my punishment. And He made it very clear that there was no other way. The Doctor Himself had to die, so I could live.

Against every impulse, I accepted that the one who I’d hated, rejected, and despised all those years, was willing to die for me. And when He died, I - my pride, my distrust, my sin - died with Him.

I was born again. I received a new heart, His heart - and a new life, His life.

And the best part? He didn’t stay in the grave. He rose from it, in glory, beauty, and yes, body! What He’d sacrificed out of love for me became mine and remained His at the same time. I was freed from my death sentence, my terminal illness, and He was free from death, who could not hold Him. And when the day comes, it will not hold me either because now I’m in Him and He is in me.

A year or so after my Grandpa left me with his final, heartfelt plea, I was baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I had met with the Doctor, been diagnosed, and accepted help for my sick heart. I still “go to the doctor” now, every day actually. I’m that sick, and I’ve come to love Him. My healing is somehow both complete and ongoing.

And what about you? How is your heart? Have you gone to the doctor?

Just like my Grandpa warning and imploring me in love not to wait, so I implore you. Don’t wait until you’re more sick. Rest assured that, if left untreated, the symptoms of your inherited sickness will become more disturbing. Your heart will become more cold and calloused, your soul more ashamed and afraid. “Don’t wait like me.”‍ ‍Today is the day of salvation. Today, you can be healed and begin healing.

I certainly don’t want you to wait until it’s too late - for death to take you and rightfully hold you. No. Jesus invites you to come, to call on Him just as you call on a Doctor when you know you’re sick, and be saved. He is reaching out to you now in these very words! He has come to you, just like He came to me.

All you have to do is answer the door.

No matter how bad it’s gotten, no matter how far we’ve fallen, no matter how ashamed, ugly, or broken we are - if we simply come, simply call, His answer is “Yes.” God so loved us, He gave us Jesus - whoever believes and trusts in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. Even though we die, we shall live. Just like our Doctor.

I’m grateful for my Grandpa’s final plea, his final gift to me, and I’m grateful to God in Jesus Christ for saving, healing, and setting me free.